Jake Rogalia

Saturday, May 14, 2011

I actually really like the Daily Burn since I started using it, you can keep track of everything from diet to workouts. This is a great way to track exactly what you’re eating, sometimes you don’t actually realize how bad your eating. It’s also a good way to show you if you might need more carbs or proteins in your diet. This is the first exercise and nutrition tracker that I have ever tried and I’m probably going to keep using it because it’s a great way to stay on top of my diet and workouts.

I would use this website to accomplish our recommended regent’s level for ls #1b by having my students set up their account at the beginning of the semester and have them track what they eat, work outs, etc. I would also have students set goals for themselves whether they want to lose weight or gain muscle. You could also have competitions within your class to see who loses the most weight, who gained the most muscle, who lost the most body fat. This could be a great way to get the students motivated and interested in working out. You can also take the data from the students results and see if the students have made improvements throughout the semester and if they are accomplishing their goals.

An electronic tool that I would use would be a blog. I believe using a blog would be a great way to keep information and also share information with others. Every day the students go on to their blogs and write down what they ate and how much they weigh. At the beginning of the year you can have the students blog about their goals for the year and they can blog about them throughout the year. Students can also share great food ideas with other classmates or help each other out with any problems they might be having. This is a great way to keep track of what you’ve been doing and also a good way to interact with the other students.

This was our final lab at St. Mary's and I must say that I had a great time this semester, the students have taught me so much and they have helped me start coming up with my own teaching style. You need to attack every age group differently but with the younger kids you really need to grab their attention quickly and keep their attention because at their age they have a very small attention span. I had a great time working with the older kids this past week, a few of the students even challenged me in checkers. Overall I had a great time with this experience and I look forward to working with kids in the future. Now, for some reason google documents wouldn't let me upload anything so my lab 6 is posted below for your viewing.

Reflection: Lab Six

Tasks

A. To reflect on your experiences working with the St. Mary's students.
B. To gain knowledge and insight as to your individual "teaching style" through play and participation.

Answer the following questions to the best of your ability.

TASK A/B: Reflection on experiences working with St. Mary's students.

Based upon observations and interactions with the St. Mary's students, describe what you have learned about young children? Provide examples of activities you felt were appropriate. Why? Were there activities that were not appropriate? Why? Some things that I have learned about young children is that they have a lot of energy and you need to be prepared for it. At this age the children have a short attention span so you need to really get them hooked to your game if you want a chance to explain it. An activity that I thought was appropriate was when I lead my basketball tag game. It was appropriate because it fit the skill level of the older kids and it was giving the students a chance to work on the skills that we had for our dribbling week. A game that wasn't really appropriate was the game our group lead for throwing. We had a ton of kids so it made it hard from the start. With this game the students were throwing under hand and all different ways except the way we actually wanted them to throw it. Even after we told them how to throw the ball they still were doing it wrong. This game didn't really work out because it was difficult to assess throwing and catching.

Based upon your interactions with St. Mary's PRE K program, describe your experience. How was this different from working with the older age students? Did you enjoy working with younger age children? Why or Why not? To be honest I enjoy working with the older kids and when I become a teacher I want to work at either the high school level or the middle school level. It's different working with the younger students because when you play games you have to find games that involve basic movement patterns because the students aren't that developed yet. At this age you also need to find ways to connect with the children and relate things to them that they like. I did have a good time working with the kids, it was good to get some experience working with younger children.

During your field experience, each of you worked with children in the cafeteria setting. Describe the fine motor activities you observed. Do you feel that working on fine motor activities is something we should work on in Physical Education. Yes I believe that we should work on fine motor skills in P.E. While I was in the cafeteria I saw a lot of students building with legos and even had some students want to play me in checkers. I believe that fine motor skills are an important skills to have in your life and the sooner you start working on those skills the better off the students will be in the future because their fine motor skills will be more improved because were working on them at a young age.

Reflecting on your growth as a future teacher, what have you learned from this experience that has given you insight as to your individual "teaching style". Has your teaching style emerged based upon your experience and interaction at St. Mary's. If yes, in what way. If not, how else might this occur? I really learned a lot while teaching at St. Mary's, I learned that with the younger students you have to hook them and get them wanting to play your game otherwise they won't pay attention and they'll be all over the place. You also want to give the students positive feedback so the students know that you care and want to be there. I'm not too sure if my teaching style has really emerged yet because the way I teach younger students is probably going to be different than how I teach older students. I feel that my teaching style will depend on the class of students that I have. I also might have to adjust my teaching style for certain students because not every one learns the same and not everyone learns at the same speed. I also feel that with students this young you really need to try and connect to them and find ways to relate games to things that they like. If something is familiar to them then the more likely they are to want to participate. I had a great time at St. Mary's this semester and I feel that it will help me in my teaching in the future.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

This week at St. Mary's I was with the older kids. Usually when you're with the older kids you start off in the basement and play games and play with board games, legos, etc but it was such a nice day out that we went outside to play on the playground. I had a great time with the kids while we were outside. I got involved and was playing tag with the kids. When we went inside I led a game and I though the kids really enjoyed it. At first the kids didn't want to play but once I explained what we were doing and once we started playing the students really seemed to be enjoying themselves. The game I had the students play was basketball tag. Everyone had a basketball and I selected who was it based on shirt colors because it is quick and it gives all the students a chance to be it. The object of the game was for the taggers to try and knock away everyones basketball. If your basketball got knocked away you had to do 10 jumping jacks before you were allowed back into the game. I thought my game ran very well and I thought it was very affective. I'm really enjoying having the opportunity to go to St. Mary's, I can't believe we only have 1 more lab left.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Well Lab D is finally over, it just seems like the semester just started but it's starting to wind down. My Lab D was on Table Tennis, this lesson created a few problems for me. One thing that I really had to bring into consideration was the size of the rooms we were using. We were in the Squash courts so it was tough to find ways to use the rooms effectively. I decided to use 3 different rooms. One room had no tables and was used for my instant activity, the next room had 6 half tables in it so that the students could really work on the skills that we were learning, and the final room had 3 tables set up to practice the cross court shot and also to play games. I thought that I actually did pretty well on this teaching lesson, I hit a lot of good points and the students seemed to be having a good time. I still have a few area's that I need to work on. I still need to try and slow down when I'm explaining skill to the students, sometimes I get ahead of myself and jumble up my words. For this lesson I should of used more intratask variation. Some students were pretty good so I could of had them go into a different room and work on harder skills. This lesson I also decided to use pinpointing a few times. Pinpointing is a good way for the students to show each other how the skill looks or how it's performed. I'm really anxious to keep learning as much as I can and keep improving my teaching skills every day.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

1) When Table Tennis first came about they used corks as balls and books as nets.
2) Table Tennis was created by the Australians.
3) Two cues for the backhand are shoulder facing target and bring arm across body.
4) Table Tennis didn't become popular untill the 1990's.
5) While performing the forehand chop you want to make sure your elbow is facing down and away.